President Ramaphosa dismisses speculation about his impending removal as 'fables' peddled by Malema

ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa. File photo
Image: Gallo Images

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has responded to EFF leader Julius Malema’s claims that he would lose the ANC internal battle during the party’s national general council (NGC).

Ramaphosa said Malema was talking “fables” just like those who had said he was going to lose in the ANC conference in Nasrec where he was elected president.

The president was talking on the sidelines of an ANC rally held in Swaneville in Kagiso on the West Rand on Saturday.

“There are fables, all sorts of fables as there were fables as we were going to Nasrec saying ‘that one is history he will never win and is going to be crushed’,” said Ramaphosa.

“There are many fables around town but what we do is to carry on with the work we have been given by our conference, that is all that guides me.”

ANC acting spokesperson Dakota Lekgoete added that Malema’s assertion was just “wishful thinking”.

During the rally, Ramaphosa promised people that the ANC government would create jobs and build them houses.

The joblessness scourge, he said, was a global phenomenon not only affecting South Africa.

Ramaphosa said it was “of great concern” that 9 million South Africans were jobless.

“When we came into government in 1994, there were only 8 million employed in the country but the ANC has created jobs and doubled that. Today we have 16 million people with jobs,” he said.

Ramaphosa said the ANC government had also increased social grants for the elderly to R1,780 monthly from the R500 they got every three months under the apartheid government.

“That is the gift that our father Nelson Mandela gave us because it is him, as the first democratic government president, who started it to address poverty,” he said.